The Ultimate Brittany Road Trip

I’ve loved those iconic images of Jean Seberg and Pablo Picasso in their striped Breton sailor shirts since I first saw them in my teens. When I began traveling to Paris for work a few years later, I asked an in-the-know photographer where I could get one. He told me, “Go to the Samaritaine”—a department store that has since closed—“and buy Armor Lux.” I found the sturdy boatneck shirts made for Brittany’s seamen in the underwear department. Nearly 30 years later, long after countless fashion brands made the knockoffs ubiquitous, I still have them.

So I was excited when I found out you can tour the Armor Lux factory in Quimper, the capital of an area of Brittany called Finistère, whose little harbor towns are among the last holdouts of French maritime tradition. With craggy coastal inlets that are tough for public transportation (and tourism) to penetrate, you pretty much have to drive here.

A land-sailing race at Pointe de la Torche.

Photo by Matt Hranek

And you don’t want to be in a hurry—what looks like a two-day trip might take four. There are tiny three-star hotels in nearly every port, and good restaurants along the way. In fact, the best meal I had was at Breiz Armor, on the side of the road outside Penhors, where the chef made me a spectacular broiled lobster with cognac sauce, then sent me across the street to visit the natural history museum he’d built. Bretons are unusually warm (for France), maybe because Brittany has had to receive more than its share of sea travelers, going back to the Vikings. The regional dialect is Celtic, from the region's first inhabitants.

I drove up the coast from Bordeaux—past salt flats dotted with wooden houses selling flaky sea salt—to Cap Coz, where a hiking path along the Breton Riviera takes you by a string of small beaches. If you want to stay around here, the Hôtel Belle Vue in Fouesnant is a sweet little mom-and-pop, where the owners greet you with a glass of hard cider without any trace of the barnyard.

Langoustines and oysters at Hôtel Belle Vue.

Photo by Matt Hranek

But Quimper, five-ish hours west of Paris, is your gateway to the region. It has a walkable medieval city center whose streets are lined with Norman timber houses the color of the local salted caramels. I stopped for a cider and buckwheat crêpe filled with egg, ham, and cheese (a regional specialty) at Crêperie Sucré-Sallé. The Armor Lux factory hasn’t changed much since it was founded 80 years ago. I watched roomfuls of circular looms knit classic marinières and those almost bulletproof Breton sweaters, which now also come in a softer merino (you’ll find them in the factory store). Armor Lux also makes high-tech fabrics for the French military, railway, and postal service. It views its work as patriotic.

The rocky coastline at Cap Coz.

Photo by Matt Hranek

From here, crooked roads fan out to the coast through grassy and rocky hills that reminded me of Scotland—that Celtic vibe again. You can drive southwest to Le Guilvinec harbor, where boats bring in bushels of langoustines and oysters, and the kids run out to watch the call-and-response at the market. Or go northwest to Pointe de la Torche, where you can see land-sailing races from the dunes at low tide, while old men in bucket hats comb the beach and French teens in wet suits surf big waves. World War II–era bunkers rim the coast, markers of the Resistance and American liberation. If you can, keep on to the Pointe du Raz lighthouse at the westernmost tip of France for a drink at the clifftop Buvette de Pors Théolen. (Stay at Le Clos de Vallombreuse, to the east in Douarnenez.) The whole place feels very raw and rugged, and very French, but also thoroughly its own thing.